The culinary arts field has long been motivated to provide auxiliary thermal-insulated handles for cooking utensils. For example, Achberger (U.S. Pat. No. 1,162,896; issued in 1915) discloses an auxiliary cooking utensil handle. The Achberger handle is a separately portable two part handle hinged along the length of one side and opens and closes in clam shell fashion. The Achberger handle includes a spring to radially bias the handle members normally apart. Because the Achberger device opens along the entire length of one side, there is a relatively large opening of the device from which a pan handle can inadvertently slip. However, the Achberger device does incorporate the benefit of being easily (i.e., single handedly) releaseable from a pan handle. A later example is the device of Budelman (U.S. Pat. No. 2,609,563). The Budelman device is an auxiliary skillet handle vertically split along its length into a pair of handle members. The handle members are joined at one end and are pivotable relative to each other. The Budelman handle has the benefit of an adjustable pivot that allows the device to be used with a range of skillet handle widths. However, the Budelman device opens along the entire length of both of its sides, therefore having an even larger opening in the device from which a pan handle can inadvertently slip.
Case metal cookware often presents the problem of needing an auxiliary means of insulating skillet or long pot/pan type handles. Colasent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,209,877) discloses a thermally insulated supplementary handle for cast iron cookware. The Colasent insulating device is a cage or housing affixed over the existing long handle of a pan. More recently, auxiliary pan handle grips made of high temperature resistant rubbers or polymers have become available in the field. These auxiliary grips stretch to slide over and tightly engage the pan handle. These latter insulating grips have the advantage of providing not only an insulating benefit, but also provide a cushioned grip over the metal handle. (See U.S. Pat. No. D456,667 to Veltri et al.). However, both the Colasent handle and the insulating grips are relatively permanently installed onto the pan's handle.
Although the above devices and others in the field may be useful for their intended purposes, it would still be beneficial to the field to have alternative auxiliary thermal insulating handles for use with culinary cookware. Particularly, it would be beneficial to have available such auxiliary insulating handles that may used to easily engage the handle of a hot pan while the pan is being manipulated, but which can be easily removed when manipulation of the pan is finished. This allows one auxiliary handle to be easily used with more than one pan, and allows a kitchen to be equipped with a few representative such auxiliary handles for use with a wide range of pan handles. Importantly, it would be additionally beneficial if the auxiliary handle provided a relatively limited portion of its surface from which an engaged pan handle might inadvertently slip out of the auxiliary handle.